Finished TIm Ferriss "The 4 hour workweek" : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307465357Book is somewhat controversial and have a bit of survivorship bias in it, but it is also quite inspirational and provide great tips on time efficiency, passive income, different lifestyle, etc. I've liked it and I'd recommend it to anyone in early / mid career.

I just finished "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg. The author discusses a bit of brain science, memory and habit. He describes how habit led to one woman's gambling addiction, how retailers analyze our buying habits to increase our spending, and if/how we can replace bad habits with positive ones.

I'm on the third book of Larry McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives. I'm new to McMurtry's writing and not a fan of the Western genre in general, but am enjoying these very much. I plan to read his Lonesome Dove series at some point in the near future.

Just finished The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford, nonfiction description of the "race" of Amundsen and Scott to the South Pole; debunks idea that Scott was heroic.

Also Shackleton by the same author. Amazing story of endurance: party went from wrecked ship to ice floes, to deserted Antarctic island, on 700 mile open boat journey to another island, climbed its mountains to get to whaling station and assistance, then back on another ship to rescue all those left on deserted island. Boy, those guys sure were tough and resourceful back then.

This is my first day of posting, so I apologize if this has been covered, but I find that http://www.goodreads.com is a great site to track 1) what you are currently reading 2) what you've already read 3) what you would like to read and 4) compare your lists to what your friends are reading.

I just finished:The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Larimore, LeBoeuf, and LindauerClockwork Prince (Infernal Devices series book #2) by Cassandra Claire

And am currently reading:City of Bones (Mortal Instruments series book #1) by Cassandra ClaireThree to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum series book #3) by Janet Evanovich

And can't wait to read:Red, White, and Blood (Nathaniel Cade series book #3) by Christopher FarnsworthInsurgent by Veronica Roth

Igglesman wrote:The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed AmericaErik Larson

Interesting historical recount of the Chicago World's Fair and the times.

Loved all the engineering/architectural/cultural stuff about the World's Fair, bolts falling out of the Ferris Wheel and the white buildings being made of some flammable composition stuff and Olmsted etc. Bored to tears by the crime stuff. By the way when you're done with that, I thought Thunderstruck, which similarly intertwines the stories of Marconi and the Crippen murder case was equally good.

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T is for Trespass, by Sue Grafton. I've already read U is for Undertow. Not sure I can get V is for Vengeance at the library yet. Pretty scary, my life will seem temporarily devoid of meaning once I've read them all.

Finished The Drop by Michael Connelly, very satisfying.

Finished Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, she can't write a bad book but this is not one of her best. I'm very much afraid she's gotten trapped by her "series" characters. Some distinct problems in this one. Problem 1, I don't believe the subplot involving Deborah. Problem 2, I think there should be a rule that you're not allowed to use mistaken identity more than once in a single book plot. Problem 3, the central "whodunnit" mystery is clever but unsatisfying. Problem 4, I can't believe nobody told Barbara Havers (or George) about Google Translate (Barbara Havers is helpless because she can't find anyone who translate Spanish websites...)

That's not my main problem with this series, however. My main problem is that Ms. George is getting ponderous. Six hundred pages plus is just too long for a mystery. Secondly I find the secondary characters, well, secondary. I'm much more interested in Inspector Lynley and Sergent Havers than I am in Lynley's posh friends or Havers' Pakistani neighbors. That said, I still plan on reading her most recent book.

That's not my main problem with this series, however. My main problem is that Ms. George is getting ponderous. Six hundred pages plus is just too long for a mystery. Secondly I find the secondary characters, well, secondary. I'm much more interested in Inspector Lynley and Sergent Havers than I am in Lynley's posh friends or Havers' Pakistani neighbors. That said, I still plan on reading her most recent book.

gkaplan wrote:The Third Reich in Power, the second in a trilogy by Richard J. Evans. Evans is a professor at Cambridge, and this seems to be his specialty, given his other works (besides the trilogy).

I loved the trilogy, though the third volume seemed somewhat less original to me, probably for the obvious reason that so many books have been written already about the war itself. You are certainly right that this is Evans' specialty. If you have time, you might find it interesting to read about his role as an expert witness in the libel case brought by David Irving for being called a Holocaust denier.

She isn't, very, but she knows enough to find South American newspaper stories in Spanish about the people she's trying to track, and even though she's trying to keep it unofficial she has computer-literate friends. I mean this is just a place where it's hard to suspend disbelief. She's working on this for days, and never finds out about Google Translate or Babelfish? An editor should have caught that.

The series is still good, but it's gotten to be more like a cherished sit-com where part of the pleasure is the predictability of the characters, as opposed to when I started reading them, where I felt more as if the characters were really real and I actually cared about what happened them.

She could have gotten just as much comedy out of Havers using Google Translate and having it come up with a mistranslation...

Just finished up "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray - a delightfully well done little study by a social scientist on why America is doomed.

He places the blame for the eventual demise squarely on the elites - those folks in the upper 1% to 5% (?) of the socio-economic class. Fortunately, I'm not in that group; but, some of you may be. You'd know who you are.

"Everything will be all right in the end. If everything is not all right, then it is not the end." - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

6miths wrote:Recently listened to 'The Emperor of All Maladies: Biography of Cancer' by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Was amazing. Must read for all medical professionals at the very least. Just finished reading 'The Age of Wonder' by Richard Holmes which was about science in the UK during the romantic period and spanning the life and times of Joesph Banks, the Herschels and Humphry Davy and their involvement with the Royal Society in London. A bit denser but very interesting nonetheless.

The Emperor of All Maladies is not to be missed.

+1. The Emperor of All Maladies is an amazing read, learned so much information about the history of chemotherapy and treating cancer. Currently reading Body of Work by Christine Montross. It is about a medical student entering the human anatomy lab. About half way though and I am entertained although not blown away.

Just finished "The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom" by British journalist Brian Cathcart (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004). Excellent, dramatic account of the birth of the particle accelerator.

Now rereading Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," the satiric account of young and idealistic Carol Kennicott's struggle to transform the sadsack midwestern town of Gopher Prairie into a sparkling colonial-style American hamlet, the pictures of which she has seen in library books.

Just started "Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer", in which journalist Shannon Brownlee chronicals the estimated 30% waste in US healthcare. I'm reading now about how perverse incentives motivate doctors to perform more procedures, rather than cure patients as economically as possible.

Today I learned:

"The really fascinating thing to me is to think that what predicts your risk of surgery today in a particular region is what it was ten years ago in the same region." This pattern of practice, or "surgical signature" as Wennberg puts it, persists over time. "If you move from Tampa to Fort Myers, Florida, your chances of getting back surgery go up 60 percent."

Some regions, especially where there is a high concentration of specialists, are more prone to surgical solutions than others, but outcomes are no better in those regions. Wow.

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In honor of opening day I have been reading: Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst . Dirk Hayhurst was a perenial minor leaguer (he does eventually get called up) and he wrote this book about life in the minor leagues and how playing pro ball is a dream for many but it can also be a nightmare of failure and not living up to your own and other people's expectations. Some very funny stories that aren't really PC but capture life on the road with a bunch of 20-25 year olds.